


The Stars are Cold

by LiterallyThePresident



Category: Janus Descending
Genre: Axel is Not Okay, Grief/Mourning, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 08:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17597534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiterallyThePresident/pseuds/LiterallyThePresident
Summary: Axel doesn’t deal well with grief





	The Stars are Cold

_You_ _killed_ _him_

That’s the first thing that crosses Axel’s mind when he wakes up in the morning, stretching in the morning light and bracing himself for another day. ~~~~

 _You_ _killed_ _him_ his mind whispers to him as he reads the morning paper, focusing on the misfortune of others rather than his own. He nibbles on toast and pretends it doesn’t taste like ash in his mouth.

 _You_ _killed_ _him_ he thinks as he pours his first whiskey glass of the day, ignoring the concerned looks of his secretary. She’d tried to talk to him about his newfound ~~need~~ ~~~~liking for the bottle, but threats of unemployment swiftly put that to an end. It didn’t affect his ability to run the business, and it helped him cope with the emptiness in his chest when he thought about his baby brother, so therefore it was fine.

He thinks about Peter a lot. He thinks of Peter when he gives assignments, ~~when he looks in the mirror,~~  and when he gives pep talks, and when he looks over the reports from newly discovered planets. He thinks of him when he glances the photo of the two of them on his desk, the one with the giant crack in the glass he’d yet to replace. The crack he’d put there the night he learned of Peter’s fate,  ~~the one shaking hands had bloodied themselves trying uselessly to fix as he apologized brokenly to a dead man~~

He could almost swear he hears Peter’s voice in his ear ~~Nice going, Ax~~  when he sees the name ‘NCC1701-Delta’ on a report sticking out of the bottom of the pile, and he downs his whiskey in one gulp before pouring another with hands that definitely didn’t tremble, not even a little. The burn in his throat makes him think of the day the recovery crews had told him what they’d found. The way he’d demanded they check and recheck the corpses because it wasn’t Peter, it _couldn’t_ be Peter, his little brother was _alive_ , he _had_ to be. The way bile had risen in his throat when the evidence could no longer be denied, the way he’d screamed at everyone present to _get_ _out_ so he could trash his office in peace. The way their mother’s knees had given out when Axel had told her the news. The way she’d clung to him and wailed on their kitchen floor, the way he’d held her and rocked her and stared numbly at the wall in silence because if he closed his eyes a tear might slip out and that was unacceptable.

He sets the glass aside and stands steadily from his desk, abandoning the paperwork in favor of taking the rest of the day off.

—-

“You _killed_ me.” Peter hisses in his dream, absolutely betrayed, and somehow that hurts worse than anger. Peter’s bright eyes are twisted with grief and fear and his face is bloody, his hands dyed a bright crimson and laced with black crystals. Chel sometimes stands behind him, ~~this is _her_ fault, _she_ wanted that damned mission~~ her treacherous arms wrapped tight around Peter’s neck in a cold embrace, as if to say that he was hers now, forever.

“No!” Axel denies wildly every night, weak in a way he’d never allow in the waking world, pleading with his baby brother to stay with him, demanding Chel release him, ~~but she’s not the villain in this story~~  grasping at him uselessly as the crystalline shadows ripped his precious baby brother from his grasp again and again and again.

“Peter, please! Please come back!” Axel yells desperately into the uncaring black, “Don’t leave me, please! Give him back, you fuckers, give my brother _back_ to me!”

The darkness laughs, a sound like a thousand skittering insects. And Axel wakes. Alone. Completely and utterly alone in the world.

He allows himself to cry only in the solitude of his room.

He can’t look at the stars anymore. It’s just a sky full of ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried something new. And is this one of the first Janus Descending fics on here??


End file.
